PR 510 9 B 1C I Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/coramcardinaliOObell X CORAM CARDINALI MANTELPIECE AND SOUTH WALL OF THE CARDINAL’S ROOM WITH PICTURE OF THE CAMALDOLI, ETC. CORAM CARDINALI BY EDWARD BELLASIS 1 The Old Oratory Church boston ( . nS 8tMUT MAS3 ' 12537 PREFACE. The staple of the following articles, saving the last, appeared in the Month periodical, and are now re-issued, with permission, and with considerable additions. Two men of some mark in theology and history 1 were pleased to say of the first — the one, that it was “re- markably good and pleasant”; the other, “you show how music was a household word with him. ... It is a good work on your part.” A notion remains that, given the chance, he would have put into the basket, not the fair copy of his Dream , that never went there, but these and other writings about himself. In the next paper, Impressions of Heaven in Infancy and Age , Wordsworth’s Ode on Intimations of Im- mortality from Recollections of Early Childhood , and Dr. Newman’s Lead , kindly Light ; his Two Worlds and Waller’s Human Life are credited with identic themes, summed up in The Trance of Time . In the third paper, Obiter Script a, a paper by a friend occurred to me, On the Beginning of Things. No deep subject this : it was on how to begin any paper, and ordinarily, 1“ when a paper has an aim,” the Cardinal 1 Dr. H. I. D. Ryder, T. W. Allies. VI PREFACE wrote in January, 1877, “it has at once a beginning, a middle and an end”. Yet how futile here for any “jottings ” to have aims, still more, biasses and “axes to grind Obiter Script a can hardly be credited with any. In 1890, focussing what he has said in St. C/irysostom, his Eminence said, “ biographers have to fall back upon their impressions ” ; a way of saying that he preferred autobiography. In the fourth paper, The Mediterranean Voyage of 1 832-33, its course, and comments therein, are outlined mainly in the “ prose and rhyme ” of the voyagers them- selves. CONTENTS. PAGE Preface v Cardinal Newman as a Musician i Impressions of Heaven in Infancy and Age ... 49 Obiter Scripta ......... 62 The Mediterranean Voyage ...... 94 Appendices . . . . . . . . . 115 Index 127 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Mantelpiece ...... . Frontispiece The Old Oratory Church Vignette — Title >» „ » „ (i860) . To face page 64 >> )) )j ... Page 66 The Old Western Transept (1861) . To face page 66 Private Chapel (1879) „ „ 68 Ambrose St. John ..... „ > ? 78 Edward Caswall • 3 ? 33 Robert Isaac Wilberforce * 3 3 33 $4 William Paine Neville .... >3 33 9 2 Tail-piece ....... Page 134 FACSIMILES. From a Letter of 1872 .... Pages 52-3 A Letter of 1887 ..... Page 85 From a Letter of 1871 . To face page 86 A Request from Castro-Giovanni . . Page 1 09 MAPS. General Route of the Voyage of 1832-3 . To face page 94 Particular Route in Sicily „ 106 VUl CARDINAL NEWMAN AS A MUSICIAN. Music’s ethereal fire was given Not to dissolve our clay, But draw Promethean beams from Heaven, And purge the dross away. Come add a string to my assort of sounds, Widen the compass of my harmony. — J. H. N. St. Philip, Cardinal Newman, and Dr. Channing on music — Not a substitute for education — Early violin playing — Provost Hawkins disapproves — Rogers, Jemima Newman, Blanco White, andR. A. Coffin at Beethoven — Newman “ mobile ” and “ immobile ” when playing — Polemic v. a tune — Dislike of mere display — Noticeable piano playing — R. Bellasis’ progress — Beethoven first favourite — The giant at play and the gigantic nightingale — Beethoven’s first Credo condemned by E. Caswall — J. B. Mozley deems Chopin a Manichean — The Mount of Olives at the Festival — The minor key “ cuts me to the heart ” — Three slow movements of Beethoven — Euripides’ human element — Gounod and Berlioz make free with the sacred text — Gregorian an “ inchoate ” science — Cannot rule religion, a great Master may — Singers need seeing to — A conservative taste — Elijah Oratorio not liked — St. Philip and Oratorio — Evelyn hears “ rare ” music at the Vallicella in 1644 — Fr. Eaton’s notable Book of Oratorios in 1902 — Oratorio at Rome in 1847 — Modern Oratorio v. Divine Service — Gounod’s Redemption — Wagner and Brahms at a discount — The latter a match for a lady’s talk — An inopportune discussion — A quartet by Mendelssohn and a quintet by Schumann — Newman “ overcome ” by Cherubini’s Requiem No. 1. His Mass in C — The Misereres in Rome — Rossini’s Mose in Egitto — Terence and music — Early com- positions and Newman’s trios at Littlemore — Bellasis’ Haven at Edg- baston — A diminished seventh — St. Magnus’ march — Consecutive fifths — A sermon at an organ opening — Eight Oratorian organs — Newman’s organists, Bennett and Elvey, at St. Clement’s, Oxford — I 2 CORAM CARDINALI An anthem at a country service — Catholic ritual — First Catholic hymns — Candlemas — The Pilgrim Queen — The Month of Mary — The Queen of Seasons — The Hymn-Books of 1850 and 1854 — Bittleston’s Daily , daily — Bishop Heber a contributor — Some tunes by Newman — He sets Faber’s Conversion — The application of words to music — Beethoven, Mozart, and Mendelssohn requisitioned — Choir work in the ’fifties — Reinagle’s collection — The Tune-Book of i860 — Music taken by St. Philip in a wide sense — The modern ear v. plain chant — A Bach fugue too much for Canon Oakeley — A plain chant Gloria reminds Dr. Ward of original sin — “Burying our Lady ” — Newman’s love for voice and instruments — Classic and Gothic v. Gregorian and Modern music — All four approved — The argument thereon in Toss and Gai?i — Sir John Lambert’s Vesper Psalter — Niedermeyer’s great Mass — St. Paul, St. Gregory the Great, and the Great Masters — Dykes’ and Pinsuti’s Lead, kindly Light sung to the Cardinal — Also Hurrell Froude’s Tyre and his own Watchman and Two Worlds — His “ greatest affection ” for Faber’s Eternal Years — The Lead compares unfavourably with it — St. Philip’s and the “ Father’s ” joy in music. It is a remark of St. Philip Neri’s latest biographer that, “ Our Saint was profoundly convinced that there is in music and in song a mysterious and mighty power to stir the heart with high and noble emotion, and an especial fitness to raise it above sense to the love of heavenly things ”. 1 In like manner the saint’s illustrious son, Cardinal Newman, has spoken of “the emotion which some gentle, peaceful strain excites us,” and “ how soul and body are rapt and carried away captive by the concord of musical sounds where the ear is open to their power ”; 2 how, too, “music is the expression of ideas greater and more profound than any in the visible world, ideas which centre, indeed, in Him whom Catholicism 1 Cardinal Capecelatro’s Life of St. Philip Neri, tr. Rev, Thomas Alder Pope, M.A., of the Oratory, ii. 83, 2nd ed. 78. 2 Discourses to Mixed Congregations , 297, 4th ed. 1871. CHANNING ON MUSIC 3 manifests, who is the seat of all beauty, order, and per- fection whatever ’U No mortal measure swells that mystic sound, No mortal minstrel breathes such tones around. 2 Music to Cardinal Newman was no “ mere ingenuity or trick of art, like some game or fashion of the day with- out meaning”. For him man “sweeps the strings and they thrill with an ecstatic meaning ”. 3 Dr. Channing wrote to Blanco White: “You speak in your letter of the relief you have found in music. ... I am no musician and want a good ear, and yet I am conscious of a power in music which I want words to describe. It teaches chords, reaches depths in the soul, which lie beyond all other influences. . . . Nothing in my experience is more mysterious, more inexplicable .” 4 “ Is it possible,” the Cardinal asks, “ that that inexhaust- ible evolution and disposition of notes, so rich yet so simple, so intricate yet so regulated, so various yet so majestic, should be a mere sound which is gone and perishes? Can it be that those mysterious stirrings of heart, and keen emotions, and strange yearnings after we know not what, and awful impressions from we know not whence, should be wrought in us by what is unsubstantial, and comes and goes, and begins and ends in itself? It is not so ; it cannot be. No ; they have escaped from some other higher sphere ; they are the outpourings of eternal harmony in the medium of created sound ; they are echoes from our Home, or the voice of Angels, or the Magnifi- cat of saints, or the living laws of Divine governance, or the Divine attributes, something are they besides themselves, which 1 Idea of a University , disc. vi. 8o, 6th ed. 1886. 2 Solitude, Verses, I. 3 Oxford University Sermons , 346, ed. 1884; disc. ix. 230. 4 Thom’s Blanco White , iii. 195. 4 CORAM CARDINALI we cannot compass, which we cannot utter, though mortal man, and he, too, perhaps, not otherwise gifted above his fellows, has the gift of eliciting them.” 1 And with him, as with St. Philip, music held “a fore- most place in his thoughts and plans ”. 2 True, out of its place, he will but allow that “stuffing birds or playing stringed instruments is an elegant pastime, and a resource to the idle ”. 3 Music was no substitute for education, any more than a “ Tam worth Reading Room ” 4 the panacea for ill ; but so long as an art did not tend to dis- place the serious business of life ; should it become Aids 1 Oxford University Sermons , 346-7. Writing to her brother about the passage on music, partly cited above, beginning : “ There are seven notes in the scale, make them fourteen ; yet what a slender outfit for so vast an enterprise ! What science brings so much out of so little ! Out of what poor element does some great master in it create his new world ! ” Mrs. J. Mozley says : “ We are pleased at your tribute to music, but what do you mean by fourteen notes? Do you mean the twelve semitones, as some suggest ? I am indig- nant at the idea. I think you knew what you were saying. Please tell me when you write” (Mozley, Corr . ii. p. 41 1). He replies: “I had already been both amused and provoked to find my gross blunder about the ‘ fourteen ’. But do not, pray, suppose I doubled the notes for semitones, though it looks very like it. The truth is I had a most stupid idea in my head that there were fifteen semitones, and I took off one for the octave. On reading it over when published, I saw the absurdity. I have a great dislike to publishing hot bread, and this is one proof of the inconvenience ” (ibid.). The Second Edition has “ thirteen notes,” which is correct, if the octave be included, but later editions go back to “fourteen ”. An enharmonic alteration of two of the notes of the scale would bring the number up to fourteen, an “ outfit ” that sufficed Beethoven in the first movement of the Eroica Symphony. Palestrina would use fewer notes, Wagner more. 2 Pope, Capecelatro , ii. 82, 2nd ed. 77. 3 Idea of a University , disc. vi. 144; vii. 231, ed. 1852. 4 See Discussions and Arguments , art. 5 . MUSIC AT OXFORD 5 to Reflection , or per contra , profitably distract ; in brief, if it helped a soul upon her journey, then welcome the “good and perfect gift”. “ Come, add a string to my assort of sounds,” says verse of his own, and of a pupil’s violin playing, the Cardinal wrote in September, 1865 : — “What pleased me especially in Richard was that the music had not interfered with his studies. I was very jealous of the chance of it. To my mind music is an important part of education, where boys have a turn for it. It is a great resource when they are thrown on the world — it is a social amusement perfectly innocent, and, what is so great a point, employs their thoughts. Drawing does not do this. It is often a great point for a boy to escape from himself, and music enables him. He cannot be playing difficult passages on the violin and thinking of anything else. But still there are more important things, and I had some fear that he might be neglecting his proper studies. Now since he has not been, his music is all gain — and I may without reluctance say that he has made a good start in it.” His own start was as early as his pupil’s. He said in September, 1875 : “I began the violin when I was ten years old,” and his two brothers Frank and Charles used to accompany him in trios, Frank playing “the bass”. On going to Oxford he kept up his music. Thus in February, 1820 : “Our music club at St. John’s has been offered, and has accepted, the music-room, for our weekly private concerts”; and in June, 1820: “I was asked by a man yesterday to go to his rooms for a little music at seven o’clock. I went. An old Don . . . played bass, and through his enthusiasm I was kept playing quartets on a heavy tenor from seven to twelve. Oh, my poor eyes and head and back.” He wrote in June, 1864: “I could find solace in music from week 6 CORAM CARDINALI to week’s end ... if I get a qualm of conscience . . . in penance for the violin, I suddenly may rush into work ”. Again in July: “. . . I really think it will add to my power of working and the length of my life. I never wrote more than when I played the fiddle. I always sleep better after music. There must be some electric current passing from the strings through the fingers into the brain and down the spinal narrow. Perhaps thought is music.” 1 Again in July, 1867, he wrote to Dean Church, who, with Lord Blachford, had given him one : — - “ Your violin improves continually. ... I make a noise without remonstrance from trees, grass, roses, or cab- bages. ...” 2 When the news arrived of his success at Oriel he was practising on the strings. “The Provost’s butler — to whom it fell by usage to take the news to the fortunate candidate — made his way to Mr. Newman’s lodgings in Broad Street, and found him playing the violin. This in itself disconcerted the messenger, who did not associate such an accomplishment with a candidateship for the Oriel Common-Room, but his perplexity was increased when on his delivering what may be considered to have been his usual form of speech on such occasions, that ‘he had, he feared, disagreeable news to announce, viz. that Mr. Newman was elected Fellow of Oriel, and that his immediate presence was required there/ the person addressed . . . merely answered, ‘Very well,’ and went on fiddling. This led the man to ask whether, perhaps, he had not . . . gone to the wrong person, 1 Life, ii. 75-6. Mozley, Corr. i. 52. Haydn and Mozart are mentioned here. 2 Life , ii. 120. LORD BLACHFORD 7 to which Mr. Newmaa replied that it was all right. But, as may- be imagined, no sooner had the man left than he flung down his instrument, and dashed downstairs. . . 1 And again, “ With a half-malicious intent of frightening them [his electors at Oriel], it was told them that Mr. Newman had for years belonged to a club of instrumental music, and had himself taken part in its public performances, a diversion, innocent, indeed in itself, but scarcely in keeping, or in sympathy with an intellectual Common-Room, or promising a satisfactory career to a nascent Fellow of Oriel.” 2 Provost Hawkins, at this time a Fellow, and ultim- ately succeeding Dr. Copleston, had no love for music, and rather despised such a thing as being “a sign of an effeminate (or frivolous) mind”. He used one or other of these terms, or both. But whatever the quidnuncs thought, Mr. Newman “went on fiddling”. His pupil, Rogers, joined him herein, and wrote in January, 1843: — “ your sermons . . . and Beethoven are most satisfactory. I wish I could hope to join you in the last in any moderate time. However, I do expect you will take me to Rose Hill to hear some more of it again, if it were only to remind me of those evenings I used to spend with you when at Iffley. I am afraid you will have enough of my bass to satisfy you without Beethoven in the course of next term.” Mrs. J. Mozley, his sister, wrote in July, 1843 : “Now I do so wish, John, that you would pay us a visit. I will practise hard to get up some Beethoven.” Mr. Bowden also played the violoncello, 3 and Newman was further supported by one who was a musician, and a deal more besides. “Mr. Blanco White,” he wrote, 1 Mozley, Corr. i. 71. 2 Ibid. i. 101, 104; Appendix, vii. 1. 3 Ibid. ii. 22, 415. 8 CORAM CARDINALI in November, 1826, “plays the violin, and has an ex- quisite ear.” 1 He said sadly in September, 1875 : “I have only one sister alive now, and she is old, but plays Beethoven very well. She has an old-fashioned, energetic style of playing ; but one person, I remember, played Beethoven as no one else, Blanco White. I don’t know how he learned the violin, but he would seem to have inherited a tradition as to the method of playing him.” Many years later he told Dean Church that Beethoven’s Quartets were “more exquisite than ever — so that I was obliged to lay down the instrument and literally cry out with delight ” . “Both Blanco White and Mr. Newman were violinists but with different instruments. Blanco White’s was very small. . . . Poor gentleman ! Night after night any one walking in the silence of Merton Lane might hear his continual attempts to surmount some little difficulty, returning to it again and again like Philomel to her vain regrets. [With this difference, that Philomel had not to learn her regrets ; she knew them already.] With Reinagle . . . Newman and Blanco White had frequent (trios) at the latter’s lodgings, where I was all the audience. . . . Most interesting was it to contrast Blanco White’s excited and indeed agitated counten- ance with Newman’s sphinx-like immobility, as the latter drew long rich notes with a steady hand .” 2 “ Both at Horspath and Oxford there was music . . . Quintets, in which Blanco White took a part, are often 1 Mozley, Corr. i. 146. 2 Life i ii. 76. T. Mozley, Reminiscences , i. 247-8, 2nd ed. 1882. Of statements in this work the Cardinal humorously observed : “ When a thing won’t stand on three legs, Tom supplies a fourth *\ The “Father” played the viola a good deal, which is larger than the violin : hence Mr. Mozley’s “ different instruments SOME VIOLIN-PLAYING 9 mentioned.” His second sister Jemima wrote him word in December, 1842 : “ I suppose you are able to make use of your violin now you are at Littlemore. I have been practising - hard lately, and wish you could come that I might turn my practice to good account.” 1 Fr. Lockhart, too, says Fr. Newman played at Littlemore “exquisite sonatas of Beethoven,” 2 Fr. Coffin joining in. Fr. Whitty brought to Mary vale Mr. McCarthy and Mr. M ‘Quoin, young converts and then priests, the latter from Jersey. Since both played, a quartet was essayed, a rare event in the Community. 3 Dr. Newman was still “ bowing ” forty years later, by which time the alleged “ sphinx-like immobility ” had made way for an ever-varying expression as strains alternated between grave and gay. Producing his violin from an old green baise bag, bending forward, and holding his violin against his chest, instead of under the chin in the modern fashion, most particular about his instrument being in perfect tune, in execution awkward yet vigorous, painstaking rather than brilliant, he would attend the Oratory School Sunday practices in the Fathers’ Recreation Room or the School Music Room, now part of a gymnasium, between two and four of an afternoon, Dr. Ryder and Dr. Norris sometimes coming to play also. For many years Dr. Newman had given up the -violin, but finding some of the school 1 Mozley, Corr. i. 210 ; ii. 405. 2 Paternoster Review, September, 1890. 3 Newman wrote from Littlemore in December, 1845: “We have just got a piano for Walker, and I have been tuning my violin,” and Walker on the 10th: “Yesterday evening Newman and I had some delightful duets of Beethoven and Haydn ”. — Life , i. 109. IO CORAM CARDINALI taking to it, he took it up again and by way of en- couraging them to persevere in what he deemed so good a thing for boys. And he quietly inculcated a lesson in self-effacement, too, for albeit he had begun the violin so very long before our time, in 1811, he in- variably took second fiddle. On one occasion, between 1860-70, two Oratory boys went up to his room to make a complaint, and hearing only “ fiddling ” the other side of the door, made bold to enter, but their visit was ill-timed. “ Every Englishman’s house is his castle,” was the greeting they got, and he “ went on fiddling”. He had no high opinion of his own performances. Answering the Liverpool anti-Popery spouter’s summons to battle, he relied rather on his friends’ estimate of his powers than upon his own. “ Canon M‘Neile’s well-known talents as a finished orator would make such a public controversy an unfair trial of strength between them, because he was no orator. He had in fact no practice in public speaking. His friends , however , told him that he was no mean performer on the violin, and if he agreed to meet Canon M‘Neile, he would only make one condition, that the Canon should open the meeting, and say all he had to say, after which he (Mr. Newman) would conclude with a tune on the violin. The public would then be able to judge which was the better man ! ” 1 With mere fiddling, a fluency void of expression, he had little patience, and when, at a term “break-up,” a youth’s bow cleverly capered about on a violoncello, he uttered no compliment when the boy had concluded. It was only display for executive skill, without feeling. 1 Fr. Lockhart in the Paternoster Review , September, 1890. SOME PIANO-PLAYING 1 1 “ Bateman : ‘ If you attempt more, it’s like taxing a musical instrument beyond its powers’. Reding: ‘You but try, Bateman, to make a bass play quadrilles, and you will see what is meant by taxing an instrument Bateman : ‘ Well, I have heard Lindley play all sorts of quick tunes on his bass, and most wonderful it is Reding : ‘ Wonderful is the right word, it is very wonderful. You say, “ How can he manage it ? It’s very wonderful for a bass ” : but it is not pleasant in itself. In like manner, I have always felt a disgust when Mr. So-and-so comes forward to make his sweet flute bleat and bray like a haut-bois ; it’s forcing the poor thing to do what it was never made for.” 1 In the same mood, when a quartet of Schubert was played to him in March, 1878, the remark came : “ Very harmonious and clever, but it does not touch the heart,” — which Schubert usually does. He wrote in October, 1834, of a lady “who plays most beautifully. I think I never heard such a touch — why, I cannot make out, for she has not long fingers to be brilliant. So you must set yourself to rival her. It would be interesting to examine the causes of expression, which you might easily do. Strength of finger is one thing certainly. This lady is not brilliant in the common sense — that is smart and rattling — but every note is so full-toned, so perfect, that one requires nothing beyond itself. This in Beethoven’s effective passages produces a surprising effect. I accompanied her last night and am to do so again to-night.” 2 He wrote in September, 1865, about his pupil’s progress with the violin : — “He plays fluently, so to say ; by fluency I mean in time, in tune, and with execution. This is stage one ; stage two is eloquence, by which I mean grace, delicacy, and expression. 1 Loss and Gain, 284. 2 Mozley, Corr. ii. 67. 12 CORAM CARDINALI To gain this nothing is better than to accompany his sisters. A boy who always is first fiddle is in danger of artistic faults parallel to those which are implied in the metaphorical sense of the words. When he comes back I think he has had enough of the music-master, and I shall try to make him turn his thoughts to a higher school of music than is suitable to a beginner, but I cannot tell whether he is old enough to take to it. I recollect how slow I was as a boy to like the school of music which afterwards so possessed me that I have come to think Haydn, in spite of his genius, almost vulgar.” And just as Blanco White would seem to have initiated Mr. Newman into the mysteries of Beethoven, so did Dr. Newman lead boys on “to swear” by that master. They might start with Corelli, and go on to Romberg, Haydn, and Mozart ; their ultimate goal was Beethoven, and round would come “Father Superior” with his ancient copies of the quintet version of the cele- brated septet, and arrangements from the symphonies ; nor were the first ten quartets, the instrumental trios, the violin sonatas, and the overtures forgotten. The “ Dutchman,” with his force and depth, his tenderness and sweetness, was the Cardinal’s prime favourite. “We were at the concert,” Mrs. Newman wrote to him at school, “and fascinated with the Dutchman . . . and thought of you and your musical party frequently.” 1 “They tell me,” he said in May, 1876, on occasion of hearing at the Latin Play the scherzo and finale of the Second Symphony, “ that these first two symphonies of Beethoven are not in his style ; to me they are Beethoven all over. There is no mistaking that scherzo .” And again in October, 1877, after a rendering of the allegretto of the Eighth Symphony, on my observing 1 Mozley, Corr. i. 19. HIS LOVE FOR BEETHOVEN 13 that it was like the giant at play, he said : “ It is curious you should say that. I used to call him the gigantic nightingale. He is like a great bird singing. My sister remembers my using the expression long ago.” And although he betrayed a little doubt as to Beethoven’s tone being essentially religious, he was unwilling to hear anything said against him because he liked him. 1 Fr. Caswall distracted, while singing High Mass, with Beethoven’s Mass in C, half-humorously vented his wrath at recreation time. “ I think that’s a damnable Credo ,” said he. “ I rather liked it,” was Newman’s rejoinder. “ More dramatic than reverent,” had been the remark made him in September, 1882, by the then Warden of Keble, after the Mount of Olives at the Birmingham Festival. The Cardinal said little or nothing at the time, but his affection for Beethoven came out later. “ When you come to Beethoven, I don’t say anything about good taste, but he has such wonder- ful bits here and there.” And in the department of cadenza and variation he deemed him without an equal. In March, 1883, he observed that he missed the minor key in Palestrina, and on my adding that perhaps Mendelssohn had too much of it, he went on, “It cuts me to the heart that minor”. So he liked the mixed mode to the Psalm, In exitu Israel , and was much affected by the slow movements in Beethoven’s ninth Quartet and C minor Symphony, and the Allegretto of the Symphony in A. 1 Canon Mozley said that Chopin was “certainly a Manichean : he did not believe in God : he believed in some spirit, not in God : while the moral grandeur of Beethoven’s genius was always present to him, as, with less force, was also Mendelssohn’s : they believed in God — their music showed it” ( Letters , 353, ed. 1885). 14 CORAM CARDINALI I cannot of that music rightly say, Whether I hear or touch or taste the tones, Oh, what a heart-subduing melody. 1 There was just that human dement about it, so “deeply pathetic,” which in the same way made him prefer Euripides to Sophocles, for all the latter’s “ sweet composure, melodious fulness, majesty, and grace Reclining in his chair in the room looking north, as late as January, 1890, and apropos of a Greek play for the school, he expressed himself as keenly and eagerly as ever about the merits of Euripides, and at a loss to understand the critics invariably preferring Sophocles, and evidently placed Euripides and yEschylus first and second respectively. A true and natural feeling, whether displayed by the author of the Bacchce , or the composer of Fidelio , almost atoned, in his estimation, for every deficiency. 2 Coleridge, in Table Talk , prefers Euripides. Distrusting musicians’ talent lest it run away with them, to the neglect of rubrics altogether, Dr. Newman, while loving some of the modern Church music, was sensitive over people setting to work upon liturgy. Of liberty taken we have examples in Gounod’s Mors et Vita Oratorio, where O felix culpa , etc., is placed in the middle of the Dies Irae ; he knew better. In his Messe Solennelle , too, Domine , non sum dignus , etc., figures as a solo in the Agnus Dei. Berlioz’s Requiem gives us, prior to the Tuba mirum , the words, from the Creed, Et iterum venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos. Of the Fine Arts aiming at being “principals,” not “servants,” he wrote : “ Here lies the advantage, in an ecclesiastical point of view, of their rudimentary state . . . and of what is called Gregorian music, that these 1 Dream of Gerontius. 2 Essays t i. 7, 5th ed. ; Month , Sept. 1891. THE CARDINAL ON MUSIC i5 inchoate sciences have so little innate vigour and life, that they are in no danger of going out of their place and giving the law to religion L 1 And where he would appear to be depicting Beethoven’s power, after alluding to “ the marvellous development which musical science has undergone in the last century,” Cardinal Newman continues : “ Doubt- less, here, too, the highest genius may be made sub- servient to religion,” but “it is certain that religion must be alive and on the defensive, for if its servant sleep a potent enchantment will steal over it. . . . If, then, a great master in this mysterious science . . . throws himself on his own gifts, trusts its inspirations and absorbs himself in those thoughts which, though they come to him in the way of nature, belong to things above nature, it is obvious he will neglect everything else. Rising in his strength he will break through the trammels of words ; he will scatter human voices, even the sweetest, to the winds ; he will be borne upon nothing less than the fullest flood of sounds which art has enabled him to draw from mechanical contrivances ; he will go forth as a giant, as far as ever his instruments can reach, starting from their secret depths fresh and fresh elements of beauty and grandeur as he goes, and pouring them together into still more marvellous and rapturous combinations ; and well indeed, and lawfully, while he keeps to that line which is his own ; but should 1 Lectures on the Scope and Nature of University Education , addressed to the Catholics of Ireland. Dublin : Duffy, 1852, 112, the Lectures numbering ten, not as now nine, and with extensive notes, now left out, of much interest. One of his “ five constructive books,” — they were composed under pressure ; the later editions, beyond omis- sion, as of the above, and condensation, are yet notably the same. 6 CORAM CARDINAL! he happen to be attracted, as he well may, by the sublimity, so congenial to him of the Catholic doctrine and ritual, should he engage in sacred themes, should he resolve by means of his art to do honour to the Mass, or the Divine Office (he cannot have a more pious, a better purpose, and religion will gracefully accept what he gracefully offers ; but) is it not certain from the cir- cumstances of the case, that he will be carried on rather to use religion than to minister to it, unless religion is strong on its own ground, and reminds him that if he would do honour to the highest of subjects, he must make himself its scholar, must humbly follow the thoughts given him, and must aim at the glory, not of his own gift, but of the Great Giver.” 1 How entirely in accord with the Congregation of Rites, with the sentiments of every lover of . true Church music. He treats Church music succinctly in a letter of 7 December, 1853 : “ The whole difficulty, I suppose, lies in this, that the most ecclesiastical music is the most difficult. Take Gregorian itself — give us some twenty strong Italian bass voices, and the rumble they produce will be really overpowering, and the only fault will be that it admits no change, but is the same through the 52 Sundays of the year. In like manner I have heard of Palestrina, not simply that his music is most difficult as music, requiring the most accurate performance, but that the voices for some parts simply cannot be found in England. [They were now essaying him at London.] “ It seems a paradox, but we are driven to Mozart & Co., because they are easier. “ I have not touched upon the main difficulty yet — 1 Idea of a University , disc. iv. 80-1. 17 THE ELIJAH which you yourself mention. Singers will sing for effect and show — and since they know vastly more about their art than the Priest does, they will have their own way and succeed. ... I think highly ornamental music, as the ordinary thing, tires, as the famous Banbury Cakes, which have no crust. “ What you propose yourself seems best — writers like Casali for common days, and Mozart or the like for great occasions. I say this on the supposition that Palestrina is impracticable. However, there is a Pales- trina style , which I suppose is much easier, and may be the ordinary style. It would not do to attempt Pales- trina unless he were really well done. Anyhow, whatever your music be, your Father Prefect must keep a tight hand over the singers.” He was slow to take to new-comers on the field of sacred music. And holding that no good work could be adequately adjudged without thorough knowledge of it, he was disinclined to be introduced to fresh musical names, on the bare chance of a casual acquaintanceship ripening into intimate friendship. He had in early days found time to comprehend certain masters, Corelli, Handel, Haydn, Romberg, Mozart, and Beethoven, but Schubert, Schumann, Wagner (“ I cannot recollect all the fellows’ names ” 1 ), who were these strangers, intruding somewhat late in the evening upon a dear old family party? Thus, writing of Mendelssohn’s chief k sacred work in March, 1871, which he had been re- luctantly induced to go and listen to, and which he never got to hear again : “ I was very much disappointed the one time that I heard the Elijah , not to meet with a beauti- 1 Discussions a?id Arguments , 343, 4th ed. 2 CORAM CARDINALI 18 ful melody from begfinningf to end. What can be more beautiful than Handel’s, Mozart’s, and Beethoven’s melodies?” Now, of course, there is melody in the Elijah , though Mendelssohn’s gift be less copious than Mozart’s ; but the fact was, Cardinal Newman never got to know the Elijah ; deemed it long, and felt content to feed upon the musical pabulum so long found satisfying. And underlying the gravamen against Mendelssohn, I surmise, there existed a species of irritation with some of the modern Oratorio. 1 “ St. Philip was the founder of Oratorios,” Dr. New- man wrote in 1857, “and St. Cecilia is a great Saint with us. We have a plenary indulgence on her day — and the Sacristy in the Oratorian Church at Rome is dedi- cated to her. Animuccia was a great friend of St. Philip ... I think he attended him on his death-bed.” Sung at the Oratory in the Saint’s time, these Praises afforded elevating recreation. Given a good choir and orchestra, their development in Oratorio suits church better than hall — a congregation rather than an audience ; the main difficulty may be getting as good executants. Musical selections, sung during the “ Forty Hours,” introduced from Italy by the Rosminians, fore- shadow Fr. Eaton’s notable Book of Oratorios, which is on the right lines. Here is seen not quite a service, nor 1 1 have it from Fr. Bowles that a Jesuit Father told a Mr. Okely that “ one of our Fathers received Mendelssohn into the Church shortly before his death,” and our informant thinks this reception took place in Switzerland. Moreover, he adds, that Fr. W. Maher, S.J., on one occasion, previous to Mendelssohn’s Lauda Sion being done at Farm Street, during the “Forty Hours,” addressed the Congregation : “ Perhaps you would like to know that the author of the music we are about to hear died a Catholic ”. No corrobora- tion is to hand hereon. EVELYN AT THE VALLICELLA 9 exactly a concert. Oratorio, it may be added, has not always been sacred, but such a character is its best defence. Fr. St. John wrote from Rome in January, 1847: “Sunday night we were at the Oratorio of the Philippines. There was a very fine musical and instru- mental performance with little or nothing sacred about it, two short sermons, one by a child, and a few prayers at which most of a large audience were sitting.” The Book of Oratorios has brief discourses. Sacred texts are set from Di Lasso to Elgar — varied spiritual fasticcios, now and again filling churches, and renewing part of St. Philips Apostolate of “going about doing good”. Musical illustration of Holy Writ in this way can be traced before his time, up to the twelfth century. The Oratorian tradition of sacred music in church — hence the word oratorio — was started in the sixteenth century by Animuccia, and continued by Palestrina, both chapel masters at the Chiesa Nuova — -a tradition developing, consequently alive. The “rare music” Evelyn heard at the Vallicella at Christmas 1 644-5 was accompanied ; with the voices went “theorbos, harpsichords, and violins” — a tradition coming down the years. Florence gave it through the Florentine Animuccia. The Florentine Cherubini supports it. Both contribute to the Book of Oratorios. But still how about modern oratorio in the Cardinal’s view ? Was it not a kind of Protestant reju- venescence of an eighteenth-century Biblical institution, quietly founded, without acknowledgment, on St. Philip’s Catholic creation, and nowadays bidding fair to do duty at convenient intervals for proper religious worship with large numbers, alike of churchgoers and of people who never go to church ? Better Oratorio here than nothing at all, and that may be conceded ; but I have 20 CORAM CARDINALI an impression that the Cardinal looked jealously at the use of Scripture for general musical performances in concert-halls. He was a little put out, too, by librettists interlarding Holy Writ with their own “copy”. Scrip- ture was good, and Gounod’s librettos, for example, might be good, but, together in literary collaboration, they were — well, not so good. While allowing that there was something of interest in the history of his Redemption Oratorio, insomuch as when first conceived Gounod had entertained thoughts of embracing the religious state, the Cardinal could hardly be induced to hear it, at its first production in Birmingham on the last day of August, 1882, nor be got to say anything about it by way of a compliment. “ As the work of a man of genius, one does not like to criticize it,” he let fall, and was rather troubled by its “ March to Calvary,” which he likened in private to “ the bombardment of Alex- andria”. At the 1879 Festival, Wagner’s Supper of the Apostles was to his ear “sound and fury,” and Brahms’ Triumphlied no better in 1882. I happened to be with him at the Friday morning performance on the 1st of September. A certain party came in late, and talked away behind us all through the G Minor Symphony of Mozart, whose “exuberant inventiveness ” 1 excited our wonder. When the din of the Triumphlied came on, her voice was drowned, and the Cardinal whispered : “ Brahms is a match for her ”. 2 1 Oxford University Sermons , 346. 2 She subsequently resumed talk, trying to draw him out about Ireland and Gounod, but in vain. It was nearly 3 p.m., as it was, ere this morning concert came to an end, yet a second lady, introduced by a noble lord, now appeared on the scene, and detained him upon questions relative to the state of the soul after death, what CHERUBINI 2 I He got to know fairly well Mendelssohn’s canzonet quartet and Schumann’s pianoforte quintet, Op. 44 ; but I recall no musical works heard by him for the first time in late life making any particular impression on him, with one notable exception — Cherubini’s First Requiem in C Minor , done at the Festival, on the 29th of August, 1879. I was to have gone with him, but delayed instead, at Hawarden Flower Show, to hear Mr. Gladstone discourse on Scotch strawberries. Henry Bellasis wrote word next day : “ The Father was quite overcome by it, and that is the fact. He kept on saying, ‘beautiful, wonderful,’ and such-like exclamations. At the Mors stupebit he was shaking his head in his solemn way, and muttering, ‘ beautiful, beautiful’. He admired the fugue Quam olim very much, but the part which struck him most by far, and which he spoke of afterwards as we drove home, is the ending of the Agnus Dei — he could not get over it — the lovely note C which keeps recurring as the ‘ requiem ’ approaches eternity.” When it was done twice in its true home, the church, on the 2nd and 13th of November, 1886, he said, “It is magnificent music”. “That is a beautiful Mass,” adding with a touch of pathos, “but when you get as old as I am, it comes rather too home.” A diary noted the service on All Souls’ Day: “His Eminence was at the throne in his purple robes. I was in the gallery at the end of the nave, and the dim-lit Sanctuary (with the Cardinal’s St. Thomas had said, etc. Meanwhile sweepers, uninterested in this ill-timed discussion, were pursuing their avocation in the emptying hall, and stewards were set wondering as to when His Eminence would be released. 22 CORAM CARDINALI zucchetto the only bit of bright colour in the gloom), the sublime music, all had a most impressive effect.” 1 On the ist of September, 1882, at the same Festival, he heard the same composer’s Mass in C, and thought the fugue at the end of the Gloria, the part in the Offertory where the chorus enters in support of the soprano solo , and the conclusion of the Dona, “ beautiful It came as a relief after Brahms, not understood at a first hearing. And inability in general to grasp good music at once is seen in his Italian correspondence. “This last week,” he wrote from Rome in April, 1833, “ we have heard the celebrated Miserere , or rather the two Misereres , for there are two compositions by Allegri and Bai, [and a third is now added, by Father Baini] so like each other that the performers themselves can hardly tell the difference between them. One is performed on the Thursday, and the other on Good Friday. The voices are certainly very sur- prising; there is no instrument to support them, but they have the art of continuing their notes so long and equally that the effect is as if an organ were playing, or rather an organ of violin strings, for the notes are clearer, more subtle and piercing, and more impassioned (so to say) than those of an organ. The music itself is doubtless very fine, as every one says, but I found myself unable to understand all parts of it. Here and there it was extremely fine, but it is impossible to understand such a composition on once or twice hearing. In its style it is more like Corelli’s music than any other I know (though very different too). And this is not wonderful, as 1 On the 13th of November, 1885, he heard in the church for the first time the Florentine’s Second Requiem in D Minor , for male voices ; and thought it beautiful and devotional, and in no way lacking in effect through the absence of soprani and contralti which he had not missed. He was most struck with the piano passage in canon beginning with the words Solvet saeclum. ROSSINI 23 Corelli was master ol the Pope’s Chapel, and so educated in the school of Allegri, Palestrina, and the rest. These are the only two services we have been to during the week .” 1 For good operatic music Cardinal Newman had, I believe, more of a liking than for the more modern Oratorio. Rossini, as a religious composer, was, I fear, in his bad books, yet when the choice had to be made at the 1879 Festival as to what performances he would attend, he first said, “ I shall go once, and I choose Mosd in Egitto ,” for he was fond of operatic music, and heard very little of it. “ However,” he added to two Fathers, “there’s no reason why you shouldn’t go to all.” Per- haps there was one reason against it ; it would be expensive. 2 The revised Latin play and music in conjunction, all 1 Mozley, Corr. i. 380. Corelli led the orchestra of the Roman Opera, and was a great friend of Cardinal Ottoboni. How different the Tenebrae music at St. Peter’s could be from that of the Sixtine Chapel was seen by the three Misereres at the former being by Basili, Guglielmi, and Zingarelli, all composers of light opera (1893). 2 There is an amusing notice of Rossini in the Anglican Letters of Mr. Newman. “Bowden tells me,” he wrote in March, 1824, “ that Sola, his sister’s music-master, brought Rossini to dine in Grosvenor Place not long since ; and that as far as they could judge (for he does not speak English) he is as unassuming and obliging a man as ever breathed. He seemed highly pleased with everything, and anxious to make himself agreeable. Labouring, indeed, under a severe cold, he did not sing, but accompanied two or three of his own songs in the most brilliant manner. ... As he came in a private, not a professional way, Bowden called on him, and found him surrounded, in a low, dark room, by about eight or nine Italians, all talking as fast as possible, who, with the assistance of a great screaming macaw, and of Madame Rossini in a dirty gown and her hair in curl papers, made such a clamour that he was glad to escape as fast as he could ” (Mozley, Corr . i. 83). 2 4 CORAM CARDINALI played by the boys themselves, were striking traditions of the Oratory School, and were institutions introduced by Dr. Newman there, and rooted in his affections from boyhood’s associations. “ Music was a family taste and pursuit,” wrote Anne Mozley. “ Mr. Newman, the Father, encouraged it in his children. In those early days they could get up performances among themselves, operatic or simply dramatic.” 1 At Ealing School he took the parts of Davus in the Andria , Cyrus in the Adelphi , Cratinus in the Phormio , and Pythias in the Eunuchus , a varied repertory, the confidential family servant, the young man about town, the lawyer, and the maid of all work. 2 We see not only plays, and then music, and lastly the two together, but original compositions, also, early engaging his attention. He wrote : “In the year 1812 I think I wrote a mock drama of some kind. . . . And at -one time I wrote a dramatic piece in which Augustus comes on. Again, I wrote a burlesque opera in 1815, composing tunes for the songs.” 3 He wrote to his mother in March, 1821 : “I am glad to be able to inform you that Signor Giovanni Enrico Neandrini has finished his first composition. The melody is light and airy, and is well supported by the harmony.” 4 I may add that Mr. Newman, John Walker, and Mr. Bowles played together, 1 Mozley, Corr. i. 19. 2 The New Terence at Edgbaston , 1 880-1, and The Money Jar at the Oratory School , 1884, by E. Bellasis. London : Kegan Paul, 1885. At Corfu he wrote to his sister Harriett (herself a composer of an Andante ) of a German lover of Weber “who has kindly undertaken to get me some Greek airs transcribed, which I mean to send you” (Mozley, Corr. i. 322). 3 Ibid. i. 19. 4 Ibid. i. 61. DIMINISHED SEVENTHS 2 5 at Littlemore, instrumental trios, written by the former, which, according to the latter, were “most pleas- ing ”. What has become of them ? On my showing and getting sung to the Father, 2 May, 1 869, a song to his words The Haven / he pointed to the second chord, ex- claiming, “ Ah, a diminished seventh ! ” I had no notion what harm that might be, but two years later, in March, 1871, he let me know : “ Every beginner deals in dim- inished sevenths. At least, I did as a boy. I first learnt the chord from the overture to Zauberfldte ; and hence- forth it figured with powerful effect in my compositions. You must try to make a melody. Without it you cannot compose. Perhaps, however, it is that which makes a musical genius.” If, in fact, you have no ideas, go in, con amore, for the chord of the diminished seventh. On receiving a march, written in 1873, he gently in- dicated faults while giving encouragement, and wrote in July : “ It shows you are marching in your accomplish- ments. It is a very promising beginning. I waited till I had actually heard it, though I read it with interest as soon as it came. I thought Fr. Thomas [Pope] would have played it to me at once, but he found it too difficult — so I was abandoned to Mr. Joesbury who played it to me yesterday. On reading it, I thought I had found some grammatical faults, but perhaps more is discovered in the province of discords, concords, and coincidences of notes than when I was a boy. 2 I am sorry to see by the price that musical engraving is as dear as it was.” And in September of the same year : “ Thank you for your new edition of St. Magnus. On what occasion 1 Verses on Various Occasions , xl. ed. 1888. 2 It had an inaccurate presentment of one of the two themes, which might otherwise have passed muster. 26 CORAM CARDINALI did he march ? I know bishops were warlike in the middle ages. However, whenever it was, his march is very popular here, and it went off with great delate Then he wrote to his correspondent in April, 1880, who talked about not being “skilled”. “ Why should you not qualify yourself to deserve the title of a ‘ skilled musician ’ ? ‘ Skilled ’ is another word for ‘ grammatical ’ or ‘ scholarlike When an Oratory organist in the early days was shown a hymn with tune and accompaniment, for inser- tion in the printed Book and composed by Dr. Newman, unaware of the authorship he corrected some of the chords. Father Superior asked why he had made the changes. The organist proceeded to advert to some consecutive fifths. “ But,” urged the Father, “ Beet- hoven and others make use of them.” “ Ah,” came the answer, “ it’s all very well for those great men to do as they like, but that don’t make it right for ordinary folk to do as they like.” So Dr. Newman learnt that, music- ally, he was only an “ordinary folk,” and would have been the first to laugh down the notion that he was aught else ; a modest estimate of self in many things was a char- acteristic ; made him call his verse “ ephemeral effusions ” to Mr. Badeley, and write in May, 1885, apropos of a sug- gested uniform edition of his revised Latin plays, “ I have not that confidence in my own performance to think 1 can compete with a classical Jesuit” (Fr. Jouvency). He is apologetic in the Idea of a University , when about to descant so eloquently upon music : “If I may speak of matters which seem to lie beyond my own province ”. x In 1828 he had contemplated writing an article on music 1 Idea of a University , disc. iv. 80. boston college CHESTNUT HILL, Li&R AH) Mass. DISCOURSE ON MUSIC 27 for the London Review , along with another on poetry. The latter, alas ! in the event, alone saw the day ; the former “ seems to have remained an idea only V I n very early Oratory days at Edgbaston, he essayed some lectures on music to some of the community in the prac- tice-room, and at the opening of the new organ in August, 1877, preached a beautiful discourse upon the event of the day ; and on music, first as a great natural gift, then as an instrument in the hands of the Church ; its special prominence in the history of St. Philip and the Oratory ; the part played by music in the history of God’s dealings with man from first to last, from the thunders of Mount Sinai to the trumpets of the J udgment ; the mysterious and intimate connection with the unseen world established by music, as it were the unknown language of another state ; its quasi-sacramental efficacy, e.g. in driving away the evil spirit in Saul and in bring- ing upon Eliseus the spirit of prophecy ; the grand pre-em- inence of the organ in that it gave the nearest representa- tion of the voice of God, while the sound of strings might be taken as more fitted to express the varying emotions of man’s state here on earth. An allusion was then made to the goodness of God and to the power of St. Philip’s patronage as shown in the gradual extension of the Oratory’s work ; and all were called upon to thank Him for the blessing of being provided with what had been so long desired and what was so important for them all. 2 1 Es says, i. 5th ed. 1881 ; Mozley, Corr. i. 194. 2 Tablet , 25 August, 1877. There were several organs at Edgbas- ton before the present instrument; the first, a “kist o’ whistles ” ; the second, Fr. Bowles’ good instrument : that went to Arundel ; the third, Mr. Joesbury’s, own cousin to No. 1. It stood against the west transept’s north wall ere a crucifix took its place ; the fourth 28 CORAM CARDINALI At Oxford, in his time, he said, there were none of the facilities for music that now form part of the institu- tions of the place ; there was little to encourage indi- vidual musical talent. At St. Clement’s, “ I had a dis- pute with my singers in May, which ended in their leav- ing the Church, and we now singen masse” 1 and in June still, “My singers are quite mute”. At St. Mary’s, Mr. Bennett, and after him Mr. Elvey, elder brother of Sir George Elvey, sometime organist at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, were Mr. Newman’s organists. “ I shall never forget,” wrote a hearer, “ the charm it was to hear Elvey play the organ for the hymn at Newman’s afternoon parochial service at St. Mary’s on a Sunday. The method was to play the tune completely through on the organ, and the way he did it was simply perfect.” He continues : “ There is a chant of his composing, which was reckoned at the time a stroke of genius — quite a new idea. I have it in a collection made by his father, who was orofanist of Chichester Cathedral,” and Bennett’s elder brother was “my master at Chichester” in 1842. He used to speak of his brother’s genius, and what a loss he was to music. 2 occupied the transept’s south wall, and went to St. Catherine’s ; the fifth with three manuals and twenty-two stops, constructed by W. Beales, was placed in a gallery in the east transept, the gift of the school’s first scholar in 1877 ; the sixth, by Nicholson of Worcester, at Ladywood temporarily ; the seventh by the same, in the new aisle, until his fine one filling the east transept, came over the present gallery, made as beautiful as may be, with a Sacred Heart chapel below. 1 Mozley, Corr. i. 97. He was killed by the upsetting of a coach on the way to Wor- cester Festival. “ With my sister’s help I have been adjusting Keble’s poems to Bennett’s chants and find some of them suit admirably. It is the only kind of music which brings out their sweetness without overpowering it’’ (Mozley, Corr. i. 220-1, 236). ANGLICAN SERVICE 29 Still the Anglican service, taken as a whole, was scarcely calculated then to stir artistic fervour, and this listener, so delighted with Elvey at St. Mary’s, went home to his village parish church only to hear the hymn murdered, or, if it were Advent, Christmas, or Easter, a tradesman shout from the gallery, “We will now sing to the praise and glory of God a ^anthem ! ” when a motet would be sacrificed to incompetency with every circum- stance of barbarity attending the execution. Mr. New- man in language of appalling force, written a year after his conversion, has described the Anglican service as — “ A ritual dashed upon the ground, trodden on and broken piecemeal ; prayers clipped, pieced, torn, shuffled about at pleasure, until the meaning of the composition perished, and offices which had been poetry were no longer even good prose ; antiphons, hymns, benedictions, invocations, shovelled away ; Scripture lessons turned into Chapters ; heaviness, feebleness, unwieldiness, where Catholic rites had had the lightness and airiness of a spirit ; vestments chucked off, lights quenched, jewels stolen, the pomp and circumstances of worship annihil- ated ; a dreariness which could be felt, and which seemed the token of an incipient Socinianism, forcing itself upon the eye, the ear, the nostrils of the worshipper ; a smell of dust and damp, not of incense ; a sound of ministers preaching Catholic prayers, and parish clerks droning out Catholic canticles ; tne royal arms for the crucifix ; huge, ugly boxes of wood, sacred to preachers, frowning on the congregation in the place of the mysterious altar ; and long Cathedral aisles unused, railed off, like the tombs (as they were) of what had been and was not ; and for orthodoxy, a frigid, unelastic, inconsistent, dull, helpless dogmatic, which could give no just account of itself, yet was intolerant of all teaching which contained a doctrine more or a doctrine less, and resented every attempt to give it a meaning.” 1 1 Essays , ii. 443-4. 30 CORAM CARDINAL! The Catholic Church’s ritual he found very different. “What are her ordinances and practices,” he asks, “but the regulated expression of keen, or deep, or turbid feeling, and thus a ‘ cleansing,’ as Aristotle would word it, of the sick soul? She is the poet of her children; full of music to soothe the sad, and control the wayward — wonderful in story for the imagination of the romantic ; rich in symbol and imagery, so that gentle and delicate feelings, which will not bear words, may in silence intimate their presence, or com- mune with themselves. Her very being is poetry ; every psalm, every petition, every collect, every versicle, the cross, the mitre, the thurible, is a fulfilment of some dream of child- hood, or aspiration of youth. Such poets as are born under her shadow, she takes into her service, she sets them to write hymns, or to compose chants, or to embellish shrines, or to de- termine ceremonies, or to marshal processions ; nay, she can even make schoolmen of them, as she made St. Thomas, till logic becomes poetical.” 1 And, of course, as the Catholic poet that he now was, he duly set about to “ write hymns ” and “ to com- pose chants”. Since 1834, his original muse, amid the “ encircling gloom,” had been entirely silent, but emerg- ing into the light of the true faith, it struck the lyre again in 1849 with the lovely notes of Candlemas : — The Angel-lights of Christmas-morn Which shot across the sky, Away they pass at Candlemas, They sparkle and they die. 2 1 Essays , ii. 442-3. 2 Verses, clix. The well-known tune to this was adapted by him, for the Birmingham Oratory Congregation, from Reinagle’s hymn tunes, brought out by subscription at Oxford. Candlemas was first published with The Mission of St. Philip and The Pilgrim Queen in the Rambler , under the heading Oratorium Parvum , 1850. EARLY CATHOLIC HYMNS 3i And in 1849 appeared his original and pathetic Pilgrim Queen (. Regina Apostoloi'um , in the Hymn- Book), the music thereto being his own composition (or in part adaptation ?). fair, .... In the chill twi - light what wouldst thou there ? This originally contained a succinct indictment of a materialistic age. Our Lord had been bartered For cotton and iron, for gas and for steam, now more vocally and poetically rendered, For the spice of the desert and gold of the stream. In 1850 came two more exquisite hymns in honour of the Mother of God, The Month of Mary , or Green are the leaves and sweet the flowers , and The Queen of Seasons , or All is divine which the Highest has made (both, with Dr. Faber’s Joy of My Heart , headed Rosa Mystica). While no line of Dr. Newman’s appears in the 1850 Alcester Street Hymn-Book, in the 1854 Edgbaston Book there are thirteen, finally fourteen, of his pieces, original or translated. 1 In the final apportioning of members for the two Oratorian houses, each had a poet in Fr. Caswall and Dr. baber respectively. Dr. Newman disclaimed the title, but the world will deem him one. How beautifully •T -* - tfa — • - f- g — :Jfc There sat a La - dy all on the ground, Rays of the morn - ing A/? d -FH- - T- .F- d circled her round ; . . . . Save thee, and hail to thee, gracious and 1 See Appendix I. 32 CORAM CARDINALI has Fr. Bittleston rendered the first half of St. Anselm’s reputed hymn, 0 mm die die Marice ( Daily , daily , sing to Mary ) : — Haec Regina , Nos divind , Illustravit gratia } She the Queen who decks her subjects, With the light of God’s own grace. But there was more than one poet both at Birming- ham and London, and Bishop Heber contributed to the book. Words and tunes of two others, No. 51, Regulars and St. Philip , The ho - ly monks conceal’d from men In midnight choir or studious dtjpj T _ ~V d ~N u r . ~m 21 ■yf- — tt — j- • V- -V-. vl S • cell, In sul - try field or wintry glen, The ho - ly monks, I love them well, In sultry field or wintry glen, The holy monks, I love them well. and No. 81, Night ( The red sun is gone , from the Breviary) 44 , The red sun is gone, Thou light of the heart, Blessed Three Ho - ly One, To Thy ser - vants a sun Ev - er - last - ing im - part. are also by Dr. Newman, and there may be others. And though this tune to No. 81 has been irreverently re- ferred to as “just like an old sailor’s song,” the same critic extolled its effect, and said how he loved to sing 1 Sancti Anselmi Mariale , 15. NEWMAN’S TUNE TO FABER’S WORDS 33 its long note at eventide. No. 61, Conversion , is Dr. Faber’s I was wandering , and the tune by Dr. Newman. an-der-ing and wea-ry, :=SEnTE gl i I was wan-der-ing and wea-ry, :feE=r ; = i When my Saviour came un > *4 to For the ways of sin grewdrea-ry, And the =L =zt world had ceas’d to woo me And I thought I heard Him Htt :> * • 1 « • etc. say, As He came a - long His way, Its peculiar merits grow, and a lover of plain chant once expressed his affection for it. It has been termed “briny” like No. 81, The red sun is gone. It has expressiveness and life and is popular in places, as at the Italian Church, London, without its being generally known who the composer is. * 1 The study of the application of music to words was interesting, as the Cardinal remarked in April, 1886. Sometimes the music could not quite fit in with the words, and one or other had to give way, and on my referring to his music to Dr. Faber’s hymn Conversion , he said he had an idea that the words had been some- what altered to suit his tune. 2 3 1 Fr. Lockhart’s solitary original tune, harmonized by Mr. A. H. Prendergast, and set to Dr. Faber’s Hymn to St. Joseph, There are many saints above , who love us with true love , is another example of tender sentiment by an amateur outweighing any technical defect as to settled rhythm. 2 In 1834, when Keble wrote an ode on the Duke of Wellington’s installation as Chancellor of Oxford, Dr. Crotch was employed to 3 34 CORAM CARDINAL! The reverse would appear to be the case. At least the refrain, “O silly souls,” etc., is not identical in the Birmingham and London books, and there is a further slight variation in Westlake’s Popular Hymn and Tune Book . 1 Birmingham. sil-ly sou-ls come near me, My sheep should never fear me, I O O sil-ly sends come near me, My sheep should never fear me, I • — (}• W fc -jS — |V ^ r — •- T m ' — 1 tF A A j s r 1 J A 1 5 • • m I 1 TflT p r> # ^ m J 1 / r • t . # VtT 9 9 T 0 I r L 1 I am the Shepherd true, I am the ^ V Shepherd true. London. O sil - ly souls come near me, My sheep should nev-er fear me, I am the Shepherd true, I am the Shepherd true. Westlake. O sil - ly souls come near me. write the music, and Mr. Newman wrote to his friend : “ I hope Dr. Crotch will do your ode justice ”. And on difficulties arising with the composer, he wrote again : “ I like your ode uncommonly. I would not budge one step for Dr. Crotch. His letter is most amusing, and your counter-suggestions are amusing too. ... I would go so far for Dr. C. as to offer him your frigate , which certainly does better for music than the long ode.” Later on he in- quires : “ How do you and Dr. Crotch get on? ” and Keble replies : “ Crotch has swallowed the frigate whole ” (Mozley, Corr. ii. 29). 1 Burns. In Westlake’s collection will be found George Herbert’s wonderful tunes to Dr. Faber’s Hail , Jesus , Hail , who for my sake (161) ; Jesus , my Lord , my God , my all (207) ; Faith of our Fathers (198). CASWALL’S HYMNS 35 Mr. Pitts kindly sent me word that “ the melody only came into my hands, and it stands in the London book exactly as I have received it. I think it was sent by one of the Birmingham Fathers, or by Mr. Edward Plater.” This is satisfactory, and points to a smoother, more effective version of the refrain by the composer himself. 1 And it has been found possible, if only for the sake of old association, to retain to the present day many of the original tunes. “ Have you,” wrote Dr. Newman in December, 1850 — “ any striking airs to recommend me, which will do for some of our Oratory Hymns ? We have got two beautiful ones from (Mendelssohn), I don’t spell his name right ; I dare- say there are more of his if I could find them. Beethoven does not condescend to be easy enough for vocal music, or compact enough for a four line hymn. (Changed my mind here). 2 ” As usual his interest enters into minute details. “ Your hymn tunes will be most acceptable and opportune. Caswall’s four Anti- phons will do very well. The Salve Regina is very good ; the Alma Redemptoris seems to me rather tame. But as a whole they are excellent.” So he wrote on the 7th of February, 1 849, and again on the 14th from Alcester Street to a friend : “ As to Cas- wall’s hymns, they are very well done, but I am sceptical about the Breviary hymns as a whole ever being popular. I will set down overleaf those which we intended to use, but I have not the means of sending it to you. Burns, I suppose, has it. (I have found and enclose a copy ;) he has just printed it for me. It begins, ‘ Hail, Jesus, Hail ’ (Faber). It is in six line metre, the third line rhyming with the sixth, and of three feet, the 1 Mr. Pitts’ chords are generally good, but might be considerably improved (more especially at the words, I am the Shepherd true) by some contrary motion in the harmony. The tune lends itself to fine harmonizing and extejnpore refrain. 2 This is in pencil, * 3 36 CORAM CARDINALI other four lines of four feet each. We have no music for it. It is a translation of the hymn on the Precious Blood in the Raccolta. If you can find a tune, I will send the work from St. Wilfrid’s, if Burns has them not.” Again : “ I enclose a book which contains what is, perhaps, rather a poem than a hymn, which is the great difficulty of many of Caswall’s trans- lations. ... If you print the words, should you print the whole of them, or only some (the most popular) verses of each ? ” “The choir,” he writes, in June, 1857, “ may do what they please in the Lauda Sion. Nothing will be better than their taking alternate verses. Only the guild must be answerable for the whole. If you ‘ give out ’ the guild shall take one verse, the choir another, there will be a hitch to a certainty, especially when the guild is in the open air, and the choir still in the corridor. Besides, the choir will want to take breath, perhaps after the Pange Lingua. 3. Tantum Ergo ; Webbe’s if you like. 4. Roman Litany. I am anything but averse to harmony here. I like it better with. But in answer to your captious objection, ‘ We don’t know what the harmony is,’ I answer, ‘ Well, then, do it without harmony ’. ” And again he writes in 1840: “As to the Chants in Reinagle’s collection they are harmonized , which, as of course you know, is a mistake. They should be sung in unison, and the more bass voices the better. But you know all this better than I.” Altogether there is a brightness, a radiance that might have pleased St. Philip about the Birmingham selection of hymns and tunes, with Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Richardson, Pleyell, Crookall, Webbe, and others laid under contribution. As we have seen in the Saint’s time, “there were sung at the Oratory many Laudi , motets, madrigals, and sacred songs in the vulgar tongue, and these gave scope for composers to essay a ORATORY HYMN TUNE BOOK 37 simpler and more popular and stirring style of music Take up then the book, hear the people at the May devo- tions sing such winning songs as Green are the leaves and sweet the flowers , and All is Divine which the Highest has made ; or during St. Philip’s Novena, This is the Saint of gentleness and kindness , and On Northern coasts our lot is cast , and we conclude that, as with the Saint, so with his children, it has been their aim “ to make sacred music popular,” and if the tunes be open to oc- casional adverse comment in detail, many have been successful in their aim. This Oratory Book of i860, with tunes, privately printed for local , use, came, nevertheless, as a surprise to Messrs. Burns and Westlake, for the occasional simpli- city, not to say meagreness of the harmonies. A quick movement from the finale of the second Beethoven Rasoumousky quartet is weird, albeit taken slow, for No. 74, Death; and Leporello’s song for Nos. 22 and 23, O fair Jerusalem, and Hail, Queen of the Heavens, is no less unsuitable, however intrinsically appro- priate, looking to the associations it might arouse, not so much among the poor, who cannot patronize opera, as among the rich. “Just look at the harmony,” said one of No. 51, Regulars and St. Philip ; and of No. 61, / was wandering, “ there is a strange want of unity, the first part has no second harmony.” A noble lord, too, disapproved of No. 51, the notes being, said he, all over the keyboard, but such are the strains of some of the best music ; and the notice to this anonymous col- lection, probably by more than one hand, is an answer to criticism, as Burns felt at once, i.e. : “ Neither the follow- ing tunes themselves, nor the hymns to which they belong, have been brought together on any one principle of selec- CORAM CARDINAL! 38 tion, or to fulfil any ideal of what such composition ought to be. Many of them have grown into use insensibly, without anyone being directly responsible for them ; the rest have been adapted as the most appropriate, under circumstances, to complete the set, and to answer the needs of our people,” and “widen the compass of (his) harmony A 1 Dr. Newman, like St. Philip, “took the word music in its widest sense, and made use of both vocal and instrumental music, and of their blended harmony ”. So writes Cardinal Capecelatro ; and while I believe Dr. Newman would have been first to admit the beauty of portions of the old chant, its liturgical hymns, the familiar accentus dear to the Catholic ear, for Preface, Pater Noster , and some of the modes for Holy Week, the tones for the Psalms, and so on, I question whether he could have made much of a mass of “ propers ” and antiphons that seem to illustrate the text, “All we like sheep have gone astray”. “ In Gregorian music,” said a writer in 1890, speaking more positively than I am able to do, “ Newman could see no beauty whatever — none, at any rate, in the usual antiphons and ‘ tones ’. An exception must be made in favour of those familiar chants occurring in the Mass. ... I recollect his telling me, after we had heard one of Cherubini’s Masses ad- mirably performed at a Birmingham Festival, that the music, though so beautiful, needed the interspersing of those quaint old chants to make it really devotional,” but “ I believe,” writes a friend, “it is very difficult for one who has heard only Mozart and Beethoven, etc., in all his early years ever to get a liking for Gregorian tones ”. 2 1 See Appendix II, Verses, vi. 2 Apart from a subtle monotony in exclusively unaccompanied music, there is plain chant ill and well sung. Probably ill sung, what PLAIN CHANT 39 Per contra “it used to drive Canon Oakeley wild when he heard his nephew Sir H. Oakeley play a fugue of Bach’s even on the organ. The Cardinal, however, liked the modus per egrinus to the In exitu Israel (that was only natural), and I remember once he seemed quite put out because once we followed the Rubrics in Easter week when the In exitu is used by having all the Psalms to one tone. P'or a moment it seemed as if he would contradict himself in his strict rule of going by authority against what he liked, and would change the tones so as to have the peregrinusP He calls Gregorian an “ inchoate science Could mediaeval work, largely out of touch with the times, claim for itself a monopoly of existence to the exclusion of the modern ? So loyal a son of Holy Church as Dr. Ward had let fall that a plain chant Gloria reminded him of “ original sin ”. “ And, if sometimes,” wrote one, of old Oratory days, “we were so unfortunate as to have on some week-day festival of our Lady, only the Gregorian Mass, Fr. Darnell used to say we were ‘ burying our Lady,’ and though he would make no remark, I have little doubt the Father thought so too.” Perhaps, then, Cardinal Newman’s love for vocal and instrumental ecclesiastical music in combination, especially at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, was a true instinct recognizing prudently some of the needs a writer in the Tablet (18 Oct. 1884) missed was “any attempt to supply by musical expression the feeling that words alone cannot convey,” with the admission that great composers have made “admir- able use of plain chant,” and that “occasionally melody of a high order is to be met with ”. We are bidden to love not the worst but the best unaccompanied music. This is what plain chant and Palestrina can and ought to be, but still the highest authority does not wish this and nothing else, albeit favouring the unaccompanied. 40 CORAM CARDINALI of another day, to be labelled, for a motto, with verses of the 149th and 150th Psalms, recommendable to the attention of a few purists in case they may have forgotten them ? Even the organ, now actually used for plain chant, imitates divers instruments. Acknowledging in January, 1859, the Gothic to be “the most beautiful of architectural styles,” he “ cannot approve of the in- tolerance of some of its admirers,” and would “claim the liberty of preferring, for the purposes of worship and devotion, a description of building which, though not so beautiful in outline, is more in accordance with the ritual of the present day, which is more cheerful in its exterior, and which admits more naturally of rich materials, of large pictures or mosaics, and of mural decorations”. 1 In June, 1848, he says:— “ If it be Pagan, it is Popish too, for I suppose the Pope has given quite as much sanction to it as he has to Gregorian music, which, by the by, seems to be Pagan in the same sense that Italian architecture is.” Again: “I think with you that what is called Gregorian is but a style of music : viz. before the fixing of the diatonic scale, and the various keys as rising out of it. The Pagan and Jewish tunes are necessarily in this style. And in this sense certainly the Gregorian comes from the Pagan and the Jewish. The names ‘ Lydian,’ ‘ Phrygian,’ etc., look like Pagan. One should think, however, some must be Jewish. I can’t answer your question about the genuineness of the professed specimen of Pagan, as in Rousseau’s Dictionary. Will Rousseau answer your question ? All true ajrt comes from revelation, to speak generally, 1 do think, but not necessarily through the Jewish Dispensation,” etc. 2 1 Merry England , No. 30, 380. 2 Dec. 1850, Mozley, Corr. ii. 479. GOTHIC AND GREGORIAN 4i “ My quarrel with Gothic and Gregorian when coupled together,” says Campbell, in Loss and Gain , “is that they are two ideas, not one. Have figured music in Gothic Churches, keep your Gregorian for Basilicas. ,, Bateman: . . You seem oblivious that Gregorian chants and hymns have always accompanied Gothic aisles, Gothic copes, Gothic mitres, and Gothic chalices”. Campbell: “Our ancestors did what they could, they were great in architecture, small in music. They could not use what was not yet invented. They sang Gregorian because they had not Palestrina.” Bateman : “ A paradox, a paradox Campbell : “ Surely there is a close connection between the rise and nature of the Basilica and of Gregorian unison. Both existed before Christianity, both are of Pagan origin ; both were afterwards consecrated to the service of the Church.” Bateman: “Pardon me, Gregorians were Jewish, not Pagan”. Campbell: “ Be it so, for argument sake; still, at least, they were not of Christian origin. Next, both the old music and the old architecture were inartificial and limited as methods of exhibiting their respective arts. You can’t have a large Grecian temple, you can’t have a long Gregorian Gloria .” Bateman: “Not a long one, why .there’s poor Willis used to complain how tedious the old Gregorian com- positions were abroad ”. Campbell : “. . . Of course you may produce them to any length, but merely by addition, not by carrying on the melody. You can put two together, and then have one 1 twice as long as either. But I speak of a musical piece, which must, of course, be the natural develop- ment of certain ideas, with one part depending on another. In like manner you might make an Ionic temple twice as long or twice as wide as the Parthenon ; but you would lose the beauty of proportion by doing so. This, then, is what I meant to say of the primitive architecture and the primitive music, that they soon come to their limit ; they are soon exhausted, and can do nothing more. If you attempt more, it’s like taxing a musical instrument beyond its powers. ...” 42 CORAM CARDINAL! Campbell : “ This is literally true as regards Gregorian music, instruments did not exist in primitive times which could execute any other. . . Reding: “. . . Modern music did not come into existence till after the powers of the violin became known. Corelli himself, who wrote not two hundred years ago, hardly ventures on the shift. The piano, again, I have heard, has almost given birth to Beethoven.” Campbell : ‘‘Modern music, then, could not be in ancient times for want of modern instruments, and, in like manner, Gothic architecture could not exist until vaulting was brought to perfection. Great mechanical inventions have taken place both in archi- tecture and in music since the age of Basilicas and Gregorians ; and each science has gained by it.” Reding: . . When people who are not musicians have accused Handel and Beethoven of not being simple , I have always said, ‘ is Gothic architecture simple ?’ A Cathedral expresses one idea, but is indefinitely varied and elaborated in its parts ; so is a symphony or quartet of Beethoven.” Campbell: “Certainly, Bateman, you must tolerate Pagan architecture, or you must in consistency exclude Pagan or Jewish Gregorians ; you must tolerate figured music, or reprobate tracery windows ”. Bateman: “And which are you for, Gothic with Handel, or Roman with Gregorian?” Campbell: “For both in their place. I exceedingly prefer Gothic architecture to classical. I think it is the one true child and development of Christianity ; but I won’t for that reason discard the Pagan style which has been sanctified by eighteen centuries, by the exclusive love of many Christian countries, and by the sanction of a host of saints. I am for toleration. Give Gothic an ascendency; be respectful towards classical. ...” Reding: “Much as I like modern music, I can’t quite go the length to which your doctrine would lead me. I cannot, indeed, help liking Mozart ; but surely his music is not religious?” Campbell: “ I have not been speaking in defence of particular composers ; figured music may be right, yet Mozart or Beethoven inadmissible. In MODERN AND ANCIENT 43 like manner, you don’t suppose, because I tolerate Roman archi- tecture, that therefore I like naked cupids to stand for cherubs, and sprawling women for the cardinal virtues. . . . Besides, as you were saying yourself just now, we must consult the genius of our country, and the religious associations of our people.” Bateman : “ Well, I think the perfection of sacred music is Gregorian set to Harmonies ; there you have the glorious old chants, and just a little modern richness”. Campbell : “ And I think it just the worst of all ; it is a mixture of two things, each good in itself, and incongruous together. It’s a mixture of the first and second courses at table. It’s like the architecture of the facade at Milan, half*Gothic, half- Grecian.” Reding: “It’s what is always used, I believe”. Campbell : “ Oh, yes, we must not go against the age, it would be absurd to do so. I only spoke of what was right and wrong on abstract principles ; and to tell the truth, I can’t help liking the mixture myself, though I can’t defend it.” 1 The irrepressible Bateman has Gothic and Gregorian on the brain; and in another place goes “on boldly to declare that, if he had his will there should be no architecture in the English Churches but Gothic, and no music but Gregorian. This . . . gave scope for a very pretty quarrel. Reding said that all these adjuncts of worship, whether music or architec- ture, were national ; they were the mode in which religious feeling showed itself in particular times and places. He did not mean to say that the outward expression of religion in a country might not be guided, but it could not be forced ; that it was preposterous to make people worship in one’s own way, as to be merry in one’s way. . . .” Bateman : “ But surely . . . you don’t mean to say that there is no natural connection between internal feeling and outward expression, so that one form is no better than another?” Reding: “Far from it, but let those who confine their music to Gregorians, put up crucifixes in the highways. Each is the representative of a 1 Loss and Gain , 282-6. 44 CORAM CARDINALI particular locality or time. . . Campbell: “You can’t be more Catholic than Rome, I suppose, yet there’s no Gothic there”. Bateman: “. . . Rome has corrupted the pure Apostolic doctrine, can we wonder that it should have a corrupt architecture?” Reding: “Why, then, go to Rome for Gregorians ? ” 1 Gothic architecture and modern Church music are both, then, legitimate developments, at different times, of the Christian era, equally with the earlier plain chant and classical style of Pagan and Jewish origin. Much, with due care, can be, and has been, sanctified herein and made good for the service of God. The foregoing would probably open out, in the eyes, say, of the accomplished author of the Vesper Psalter , 2 a wide field for further discussion. Sir John Lambert’s Preface is well worthy of attention, and he remarks, “ that while pleading for the restoration of the Ritual Song as the Church system and the music of the people, and as the basis of all that is really grand and ecclesi- astical, the writer would not wish to be understood to object to the superadding of the most elaborate music where it can be properly executed, if it does not super- sede the Church Song, and is of a character to harmonize with it. Doubtless,” he adds, “as the Church employs all the resources of art, as far as in accordance with her own spirit, the most perfect celebration of the Divine 1 Loss and Gain , 277. 2 Burns, London, 1849. The Dublm Review (ii. Jan. -March, 1864, New Series) succinctly sums up the Church music question. It is in accordance with the wishes of His Holiness “that music properly so called may be admitted as well as plain chant. 2. That the music of the Church is to possess a certain gravity and to minister to devotion. 3. That instrumental music may be allowed under cer- tain restrictions. Pius X is of the same mind.” POPE ST. GREGORY I 45 Office would be where both could be combined. All would then be impressed and edified, each person, according to his peculiar sense, and God would be worshipped with all the magnificence which art can be made to minister.” Golden words, behind which I would hide aught intemperate in past advocacy of the best in modern art for the service of the Church, for — There are two ways to aid her ark — As patrons and as sons . 1 Meanwhile, so much may be fairly gathered — the Cardinal’s musical views were sensible ones, if open, in theory and example, to differences of opinion. Omnia probate , he seems to say, quod bonum est tenete . He had, of course, no real sympathy with any extravagances. His was a cultured, or at any rate a refined taste, sui simi/is, and when it was said in April, 1886, that Nieder- meyer’s B Minor Mass was “elaborate,” he observed : “Well, I like a medium in music, although I may be wrong in that”. All was well, I suppose, provided the best gifts of Catholic masters in their art, and the last to be attacked because they are not something else, were in good faith proffered to Almighty God, properly ren- dered. In the words herein of St. Gregory the Great : Mi hi placet ut , sive in Romana , sive in Galliarum , sive in qualibet ecclesia, aliquid invenisti quod plus omnipotenti Deo possit placere , sollicite eligas . 2 All was well, too, if singers and players were animated with the Catholic spirit that breathed in some of Haydn and Mozart, to say nothing of later giants. 3 1 cviii. Verses . 2 S. Greg. Epist . xxxi. lib. xii. De expos, divers rerum. 3 M. Tonnelle, pupil of Fr. Gratry of the Oratory : “ Haydn et Mozart, c’est la foi Catholique, c’est la soumission naive et spontanee, 46 CORAM CARDINALI Under such conditions, and with due observance of the unaccompanied chant in Advent and Lent, the male choirs of both Oratories and other choirs in England have probably done a good work, and if so, one worthy both of St. Philip’s blessing and that of the late Holy Father and his predecessors Leo XIII and Pius IX. It was in April, 1886, that Frs. Richard and Henry Bellasis, with the present writer, played over to Cardinal Newman Canon Dykes’ well-known setting to Lead , kindly Light , which, he said, he had never heard before, and he seemed rather surprised at its very quiet, hymn- like quality. No piano could equal the strings or any organ, though there was nothing really so “ magnificent,” he once said, as a military band of brass and wood-wind. We now gave him, with violin and violoncello obbligati , the version of the Lead by Pinsuti and West, 1 as also Hurrell Froude’s Tyre, from the Lyra Apostolica, and a striking poem indeed, as are all the too few verses signed / 3 . After I had ventured to interpret this Phceni- cean lament, so grandly sung by Froude, we gave the Cardinal his Watchman. Deeming it “ rough ” in ex- pression, he excluded it from his Verses of 1868, until, on Mr. Oxenham’s remonstrance, it was put in. 2 c’est la devotion tendre et vive ” (which can of course be truly said more often than not). 1 See Appendix III. 2 The two contending ideas have to be conveyed in the vocal and instrumental strains here, and it is one of the greatest of the Mediter- ranean poems. Therein Infidelity, a friend thought, was represented by “Ammon” ; but why, asked another, was “niggard ” applied to “Tyre” — generally associated with “purple and fine linen”? Political Economy, then, was here referred to. “Some work for love and some work for hire.” This indicated “the mixed character of your fellow- workmen Eli was “the weak old bishop,” Saul and FABER’S ETERNAL YEARS 47 Then we sang the complement to Lead , kindly Light , in the Two Worlds } In 1889 he had been very ill, and when recovering said to Fr. Henry Bellasis : “ Fr. Faber wrote the hymn Eternal Years? I have always had the greatest affection Beethoven. How shalt thou bear the cross that now so dread a weight ap - pears, Keep qui - et - ly to God, and think up - on th’e-ter - nal years. for it — in connection with Fr. Faber, and I always used to think that when I came to die, I should like to have it sung to me ; and I want you to play it for me.” Fr. Bellasis said : “ I could get a harmonium in ”. “ A harmonium would do everything. How many are there ? perhaps one could be spared me.” So when evening had set in, a harmonium was put in the passage between his two rooms. Fr. Neville knelt at his side first re- citing each verse, while Fr. Pollen and Fr. Bellasis, Achitophel “different forms of political opposition,” Gerizen was “Samaria” or Dissent, Gath “the Philistine worldling”. Ap- pendix IV. 1 See Lyra, cxxxix. Verses, xxxvi, clxxv, and infra, 59. 2 Faber’s Poems, No. 135, pp. 379-81, ed. 1861. This is not in the London Oratory Hymn Book (1893), but, under the heading “Eternity,” six of the quatrains (1, 8, 9, 11, 15, 16) appear in the Birmingham Book, 1854-88, as No. 73, set to the above tune in the minor from Beethoven’s 6th trio (for flute, viola, and violoncello, taken andante'). 4 8 CORAM CARDINALI one with a violoncello, played and sang the Eternal Years . “ Some people,” he then said, “ have liked my Lead , kindly Light , and it is the voice of one in darkness, asking for help from our Lord. But this is quite differ- ent ; this is one with full light, rejoicing in suffering with our Lord, so that mine compares unfavourably with it. This is what those who like Lead , kindly Light have got to come to — they have to learn it.” Then they played and sang it over again. And he said at the end : “ I thank you with all my heart. God bless you. I pray that when you go to Heaven, you may hear the Angels singing with the genius that God has endowed them with. God bless you.” To quote again, as I began, from Cardinal Capecelatro and Fr. Pope, and I have done. What His Eminence says of the first founder of any Oratorian Congregation may more or less apply to the great Oratorian whom we have mourned: “The sweet enticement of music is quite in harmony with the spirit of St. Philip, and imparts to piety an ineffable gladness and gentleness and grace. Take away from our Saint his delight in music, and you leave his image in our hearts mutilated, despoiled of much of its winning beauty .” 1 1891-1916. 1 Pope, Capecelatro, ii. 106, 2nd ed. 99. IMPRESSIONS OF HEAVEN IN INFANCY AND AGE. A thought of long-past childhood woke me to-day, The voice of Spring — and to my soul were given Clear images of what is clear in Heaven. — C. W. Herbert’s Poems of the Seen and the Unseen , 14. Wordsworth’s Ode a seeming paraphrase of the Lead — Ruskin on what has been “ lost awhile ” — The Ode first in time, on land — The Lead , twenty-six years later, at sea — Coleridge does not deem the Ode Platonic, Newman does — It affects him more than aught in Shakespeare or Scott — Henry Vaughan’s lines — Newman’s past Heaven, and his Havens lost Paradise — The early home at Ham — Trafalgar celebrated at four — The Apologia, Sermons , and Grammar cited on children’s souls — “ If babes could speak ” — What the Pre- lude and Excursion say — Newman’s Two Worlds on age’s impressions paralleled by Waller’s Human Life — Tennyson’s “gleam forlorn ” — The Trance of Time , a summing up of infancy and age’s recollections. Mr. R. Hutton wrote that Wordsworth never “found,” or as he, in a later note, explained his own remark, “never made any profound impression on” Newman, “ though there is so much in his writings that seems like a paraphrase of some of Wordsworth’s finest poetry V The Cardinal may have deemed the Bard of Rydal constituted himself too much “ a high priest of nature,” yet the poem of each that is best known, the Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, and Lead, kindly Light, seem to me to contain, the one in extenso, the other in brief, a similar idea, and herein Dr. Newman “found” Wordsworth and Wordsworth “ found ” Dr. Newman. Both notice another world’s sen- 1 Cardinal Hew man, 14. 49 4 CORAM CARDINALI So sible impressions, to be followed by those “fallings from us, vanishings,” and the “bitter decline of this glorious feeling owing to the cares and weight of manhood ”. 1 But Ruskin does not here describe the feeling as aught directly spiritual, but only “a sense of beauty,” and that while, later on, men have “ not the time nor the liberty to look for their lost treasure,” yet “ human and divine affections” are ordered “to take its place”. With Wordsworth he will “not grieve” for the loss. The subject has occasioned not “lamentation,” but rather “ holy thankfulness for the witness it bears to the immor- tal origin and end of our nature ”. If the loss were merely that of “a sense of beauty,” and “most intense, superstitious, insatiable, and beatific perception of her splendour,” this deprivation might be put up with, but it is more than this with Dr. Newman and Wordsworth. The Ode came first, being written between 1803- 1806 at Townend, Grasmere; the Lead in 1833, near the Straits of Bonifacio ; otherwise the Ode might be a paraphrase of Lead , kindly Light. Mr. Newman wrote in August, 1850 : “The verses you speak of, Lead Thou, etc., were written on Sunday, the 16th of June, 1833, on the deck of a Sicilian sailing vessel, when I was be- calmed in the sun off Sardinia for a week, on my way from Palermo to Marseilles”. There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth and every common sight, To me did seem Apparell’d in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore . . . The things which I have seen I now can see no more. 1 Mod. Painters , Pop. ed. II, iii. v. i. 412. Plato’s Mti'toi/. AN ALLEGED PLATONISM 51 So far Wordsworth’s opening. “ To that dream-like vividness and splendour which invests objects of sight in childhood, every one, I believe,” he wrote, “if he would look back, could bear testimony,” and to those who have been pained at his inculcating, as it were, belief in “a prior state of existence,” the poet puts forth his disclaimer ; Coleridge, indeed, wrote : “ Readers will be as little disposed to charge Mr. Wordsworth with believ- ing the Platonic pre-existence in the ordinary interpre- tation of the word as I am loth to believe that Plato him- self ever meant or taught it,” that is to say, Plato rather “ looked upon the mingled experience of mundane life as inducing a gradual but slow remembrance of the past”. It is, anyway, Wordsworth says, but “an ele- ment in our instincts of Immortality,” but, at the same time, he thinks it not contradictory to revelation, and he perceives some “ analogy ” thereto in man’s fall 1 I once asked the Cardinal about it, and he replied in April, 1872 : — “ As to Wordsworth you are quite right. He puts forth the Platonic doctrine, not the Christian. I have glanced at him in my article on Keble [per contrast), in the second volume of my Essays. It is a most beautiful doctrine, and may be modified in a Christian sense. It is our common belief that every soul has its Guardian Angel, but if so, is it possible that the good Angel should not whisper high truths to poor little heathen infants, or, at least, is it not allowable to think so? Still more surely may we say that, considering Baptism im- parts Faith, Hope, and Charity, the intellect of Christian chil- dren comes into this world of sense, and wakes up to reflection ‘ trailing clouds of glory do they come from God who is their home \ 1 Wordsworth , Moxon’s ed., v. 103. Wordsworth, Knight’s ed. 4 * 52 CORAM CARDINALI ty* rvd'j lj *1 /C~ t ^ i~^ — ^— - *t !Uy {Li A-'z C eu. (t*^L ^ ^4-*- tr>ar*^ty a: ^ ^ «* G- tKrVf~ 6 -CtL*-i- f^\(. 'O /* A-**’ ^ ' C-A £Z. ,W.. ^ ^ '**■'' Crt«— ,A • jaa c <_ A/^ W C^y JtruX C* X'Jt~*rAlo~ *yJ : A*/^ ^ ( * A fj'fiJL fcs~ <*- A-y+t-' ;CnM uA L-^L tr f***- L-Vt- L^tc ! a- -> -• V a/ ^(oi,al lr ftaC Jc ! •ftAl H «y w 4 : a- . ^ ^ OL- / udlt . fc -* 7 /£ZZ^ I t y^stc . /sic-*- ^ 6vJtx^ / ^ r «-Z yd/l //U «^~S - Cr/£*1* '*7- *2^ A y/ ^ A^U. ‘ f *■* <* <*• /. hu £ yl/>w * /&S~ */ fy, ft- Ifsflo ~ A.*—^ 7^/ / ^f'U, (/ *f+ty jfl a*. *-*. Lr-t/7 4 ^4. f&- as J AsV4? C lf~-. 7&» /Ault//